Well, supposedly angels are 100% 'inline' with God, whereas demons were actually angels but chose to go against God. They are the fallen angels that together with Satan have the mere objective of misguiding people into go against God, for example, to choose individual pride over common interest. (Those are the Catholic teachings anyways.)

Where did you hear this? Jibril did NOT tell the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that the immaculate conception was not true. Seriously... who told you that? If I were you, I wouldn't believe what that person told you anymore.

Did you know that Chapter 19 of the Qur'an is called "Mary"? and when we refer to Jesus, we sometimes refer to him as Bint Maryam (son of Mary)?... rather than Ibn Yusef (son of Joseph).

In this chapter, not only the immaculate conception of Jesus is addressed... but the immaculate conception of his cousin John the Baptist is as well. The first few paragraphs describe how the Prophet Zakaria prayed to God for a son, and it is mentioned how his wife was too old and barren to have children, but that God could do anything, so not to worry, for she would have a child.


Peace,
Salahdin

__________________
I am nothing.
My Creator is Everything.

Yeah, you're right. Shame on my for supposing that . But I have two questions.

First of all, If Jesus is the only Son that came forth out of the Immaculation of the Virgin Mary, then why don't you recognize him to be something more than a prophet.

Secondly, there is a statement in the same passage saying:

4-157 They said in boast, "We killed Jesus Christ, son of Mary, the messenger of God." But they killed Him not, nor crucified Him, but so it was made to appear to them. Those who differ are full of doubts with no certain knowledge. Nay Allah raise him up unto Himself.

This is kind of weird because some of the writers of the New Testament were eye witnesses whereas the Quran was written some 500 years later.

There are at least 5 immaculate conceptions I am aware of. 1. Adam. 2. Eve. 3. Isaac 4. John the Baptist and 5. Jesus.... so which one is more special than the other?

However... we recognize that Jesus is the Messiah and he will return... soon. God Willing.


I have to ask you... are you absolutely certain that there were eye-witnesses to the event who wrote the new testament? And are you certain the Qur'an was written 500 years later?

I'll wait for you to look it up and get back to me... we may both learn more this way, Insha Allah (God Willing).

Peace and compassion, Salahdin

__________________
I am nothing.
My Creator is Everything.

John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder, and Matthew the tax collector where both Apostles and writers of the Gospels. As for Luke and Mark, well Mark was the disciple of Peter and typed the text for him as Peter was illiterate and Luke was the disciple of Paul. So in a way it is fair to say that the Gospels have rather justifiable sources.

As for the Quran, I don't know when it was written in its complete form, but I do know that it was at least a couple of hundred years after the Gospels.

Ok Roel... I can understand how you would believe that the books named for the apostles (disciples) may have been written by the ones who they are named for. However... they are not, necessarily. They are the gospels "according to" so and so.

There are many places to look in search of who actually wrote the New Testament... but for simplicity sake; I will quote the oft-referenced Wikipedia because it's just so darn convenient.

Let's start with Mathew.... this Gospel used to be my personal favorite and as a child I would day-dream about being Mathews friend... it's just such an easy read in my opinion and very "down to earth" so to speak. So you can imagine my disappointment when I learned many many years ago that:

The Gospel of Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament,.... The Christian community traditionally ascribes authorship to Matthew the Evangelist, one of Jesus' twelve disciples. Augustine of Hippo considered it to be the first gospel written (see synoptic problem), and it appears as the first gospel in most Bibles. Secular scholarship generally agrees it was written by an anonymous non-eyewitness to Jesus' ministry. The author apparently used the Gospel of Mark as one source and the hypothetical Q document as another, possibly writing in Antioch, c 80-85.[1]

Of the four canonical gospels, Matthew is most closely aligned with the Jewish tradition, and the author was apparently Jewish. Most scholars consider the gospel, like every other book in the New Testament, to have been written in Koine Greek, though some experts maintain the traditional view that it was originally composed in Aramaic. The gospel is associated with noncanonical gospels written for Jewish Christians, such as the Gospel of the Hebrews.

Then on to Mark:

The Gospel of Mark, anonymously written[1] but traditionally ascribed to Mark the Evangelist, .... The gospel itself is anonymous, but as early as Papias in the early 2nd century, a text was attributed to Mark, a disciple of Peter, who is said to have recorded the Apostle's discourses. Papias' authority in this was John the Presbyter. While the text of Papias is no longer extant, it was quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea:

The Gospel According to Luke:

Early tradition, witnessed by the Muratorian Canon, Irenaeus (c. 170), Clement of Alexandria, Origin, and Tertullian, held that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were both written by Luke, a companion of Paul.[16] The oldest manuscript of the gospel (ca. 200) carries the attribution “the Gospel according to Luke”.[17] Donald Guthrie describes the early Christian testimony concerning the gospel's authorship as in full agreement, although "some scholars attach little importance to it".[18] The claim that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written by the same author is considered by contemporary scholarship to be “almost certain”.[19] The most direct evidence comes from the prefaces of each book. Both prefaces are addressed to Theophilus, possibly although not certainly the author's patron, and the preface of Acts explicitly references "my former book" about the life of Jesus. Furthermore, there are linguistic and theological similarities between the two works, suggesting that they have a common author.[20] Both books also contain common interests.[21] With the agreement of nearly all scholars, Udo Schnelle writes, "The extensive linguistic and theological agreements and cross-references between the Gospel of Luke and the Acts indicate that both works derive from the same author".[22] Those biblical scholars who consider the two books a single, two-volume work often refer to both together as Luke-Acts.[23]
Given this, the internal evidence of the Acts of the Apostles concerning its author pertains to the authorship of the Gospel. This evidence, especially passages in the narrative where the first person plural is used, points to the author being a companion of Paul.[24] As D. Guthrie put it, of the known companions of Paul, Luke is “as good as any… [and] since this is the traditional ascription there seems no reason to conjecture any other.”[25] There is further evidence from the Pauline Epistles.[26] Paul described Luke as “the beloved physician”, and scholars have long found evidence of technical medical terminology used in both the Gospel and Acts,[27] though this argument has been challenged and it is without universal acceptance.

The traditional view of Lukan authorship is “widely held as the view which most satisfactorily explains all the data.”[28] The list of scholars maintaining authorship by Luke the physician is lengthy, and represents scholars from a wide range of theological opinion.[29] But there is no consensus, and the current opinion concerning Lukan authorship has been described as ‘about evenly divided’.[30] on who the author was.

The Gospel According to John:

The authorship has been disputed since at least the second century, with mainstream Christianity believing that the author is John the Apostle, son of Zebedee. Modern experts usually consider the author to be an unknown non-eyewitness, though many apologetic Christian scholars still hold to the conservative Johannine view that ascribes authorship to John the Apostle.

The text itself is unclear about the issue. John 21:20-25 contains information that could be construed as autobiographical. Conservative scholars generally assume that first person "I" in verse 25, the disciple in verse 24 and the disciple whom Jesus loved (also known as the Beloved Disciple in verse 20 are the same person;[7][8] they further identify all three descriptors with the Apostle John through a combination of external and internal evidence.[9] Critics point out that the abrupt shift from third person to first person in vss. 24-25 indicates that the author of the epilogue, who is supposed a third-party editor, claims the preceding narrative is based on the Beloved Disciple's testimony, while he himself is not the Beloved Disciple.[10][11]

Brother... after you read this... I ask again... are you sure about who wrote the Gospels?

As far as the Qur'an goes. It is accepted by all Muslims that God wrote the Qur'an, passed it along through Jibril to the Prophet Muhammad, who memorized it word for word and taught it to his companions who memorized it word for word. When it was compiled after the death of Muhammad by the 4th Caliphate (Uthman),; who was himself a companion of Muhammad and knew the Qur'an by heart, all the scholars in the lands were summoned to verify it's authenticity. Upon completion of this authentication, the Qur'an was then meticulously reproduced and every singel copy was again authenticated before being allowed to be dispersed throughout the lands. Todays Arabic Qur'an is the exact same arabic Qur'an as it was over 1400 years ago.

The first ayat, or verse, of the Qur'an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad, pbuh in "about" 610a.d. and completed approximately 22 years later with the final revealation.

To be fair, I will again quote Wikipedia:

The Qur’ān [1] (Arabic: القرآن al-qur'ān, literally "the recitation"; also sometimes transliterated as Qur'an, Koran, or Al-Qur'an) is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind and consider the text in its original Arabic to be the real word of Allah,[2][3] revealed to Muhammad by Gabriel over a period of 23 years[2][4][5] and view the Qur'an as God's final revelation to humanity.[6][7]

Muslims regard the Qur'ān as the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with those revealed to Adam — regarded, in Islam, as the first prophet — and including the Suhuf-i-Ibrahim (Scrolls of Abraham),[8] the Tawrat (Torah),[9][10] the Zabur (Psalms),[11][12] and the Injil (Gospel).[13][14][15] The aforementioned books are recognized in the Qur'ān,[16][17] and the Qur'anic text assumes familiarity[18] with many events from Jewish and Christian scriptures, retelling some of these events in distinctive ways, and referring obliquely to others. It rarely offers detailed accounts of historical events; the Qur'an's emphasis is typically on the moral significance of an event, rather than its narrative sequence. Details to historical events are contained within the Hadith of Muhammad and the narrations of Muhammad's Companions (Sahabah).

I hope this shed a little light on the subject.

Let me know your thoughts.

Peace.

__________________
I am nothing.
My Creator is Everything.

Wow, you really did your homework! First one post on my thoughts on the Quran, and after that I will make another post on the points that you mentioned.

Well, these are my thoughts. First of all, it indeed seems that the Quran is authentic in the sense that from the perspective of scholars and linguists. The source is of one prophet who dictated the text to his schollars (if I am correct here). After that there have been only direct copies from that unique source. So the text as a volume is certainly authentic. The question that arises among none-muslims, is if the Prophet was truly a mesenger from Allah or if he just knew a lot about Judaism and Christianity and based his own religion on them, correcting the mistakes he saw. For example, there are some contradictions in the text. In google you can find huge lists so I will spare you these. You can look them up if you feel like it.

My argument is, that if there is only one unique source of the Quran, from God to Jibrel to Mohammad, then why do these inconsistencies exist?

well, I had a huge answer, but i guess I ran out of time or so, so I had to log in again and lost it.

Anyways, in short. I had a general reply to the points you mentioned and the main argument was that the History of the Bible is completely different to that of the Quran. In general early Christian communities were created by the Apostles though the Gospels they declared verbally. At some point there were some frictions about the teachings among the apostles, especially James and Peter. So it is not until then, that the they decided to collect writings and write other stuff done. After that, the books were translated from Hebrew and Greek to Latin and Coptic. It was not until the second counsil of Niceae that the Bible as we know it was put together and the canonic text were selected.

Now, the fact that there were different version of the Gospel of different authors and the fact that they were not selected until 375 AD, is for some schollars an important indication that the texts might not have been authentic.

For me as a Catholic, I would argue, that if you have for texts from four differnt authors stating the same events, it is even more reliable that if it would come from only one author.

Because they are misconceptions based on misinterpretations. They are not inconsistencies.

Part of the misconceptions arise due to the fact that the Qur'an was revealed to the final Prophet over the course of 22 or 23 years. During this time period, the Muslim community went through many changes due to social and economic climate... from early persecution and acceptance of brutality against them to warring against their oppressors and finally on to prosperity. In the early days of the revelations the people were extremely ignorant and they were even allowed to consume alcohol and they were not commanded to pray. As their knowledge and piety increased, so did the demands placed upon them by God.

The Qur'an must be taken as a complete document. It cannot be taken as a verse here and a verse there. The entire document must be understood.

The first verse revealed to Muhammad was a command to read and the final revealed verse tells us that "on this day we have perfected your religion for you". Not for God, but for mankind.

What some, out of "ignorance" (for lack of a better word), would call inconsistencies... I call development.

__________________
I am nothing.
My Creator is Everything.

And I would say that if I had 30 documents (there were actually close to 300 documents at the council you refer to) but only 4 of them share commonalities that fit the ruler of the day... then I would have to question those 4 and look deeper into the others.

If I held a meeting in the town hall and everyone from town showed up and they all had written accounts of what the forefathers of the town said 300 + years earlier but only 4 of them find something in common that fits the agenda of the current mayor.... whereas several others may have had something in common, but they did not fit the agenda of the mayor... then I truly believe I would not hold those 4 individuals up as the holders of the gospel truth.

But that's just me.

__________________
I am nothing.
My Creator is Everything.